Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.

But geometry and oratory are related in a yet more important way than this.

In the first place logical development is one of the necessities of geometry. And is it not equally a necessity for oratory? Geometry arrives at its conclusions from definite premises, and by arguing from what is certain proves what was previously uncertain. Is not this just what we do in speaking? Again are not the problems of geometry almost entirely solved by the

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syllogistic method, a fact which makes the majority assert that geometry bears a closer resemblance to logic than to rhetoric? But even the orator will sometimes, though rarely, prove his point by formal logic.